Rogue gym mats

When it comes to standard, time-tested strength training equipment, you’d be hard pressed to find a company with as formidable a reputation as Rogue’s. Rogue is the official sponsor of the Crossfit games’ equipment (where slamming your weights is seemingly encouraged), so you can be certain that at the very least their equipment is hardy stuff. Though they stock everything from medicine balls, bumper plates, and skipping ropes to punching bags, we’d like to recommend a few choice items for experienced gym rats.

These are essential for any home-gym that involves barbells, dumbbells and weights of any kind. Unless you want to leave a nasty divot in your flooring every time you bail on a squat or descend a little too enthusiastically on a heavy set of deadlifts, these heavy-duty rubber mats will keep your lovely parquet safe. Each mat weighs around 45kg and come textured, making for a stable lifting platform that’s far safer than sweat-slicked marble.

Rogue power rack

A rack is a must-have for any serious home gym – especially if you want to perform heavy barbell exercises like the squat and bench press with a measure of safety. It’ll also help you keep your plates and barbells in order. Don’t forget an adjustable bench. Just remember: use the safeties or your spotter might have to break that one metre of social distancing to save you from an overzealous lift.

Rogue gymnastic rings

Rings are a pretty versatile piece of home workout gear. You can bring these around with you anywhere and hang them on anything from a pull-up bar to a particularly sturdy tree. These aren’t just for gymnasts. Thanks to the instability of the rings, a simple push-up feels like ten. Overcoming that instability builds up a great mental connection to muscles in your upper body – and you know how jacked gymnasts are.

Clmbr

Clmbr aims to bring us back to our simian roots by creating a full body exercise system that mimics, well, climbing. As always, it’s well-suited for a fast and furious workout as it uses all four of your limbs at once. Clmbr is also impact-free by design; preventing joint injuries that will leave you exercising long after the COVID-19 outbreak is over. Like many other items on this list, Clmbr offers personalised workouts, performance tracking and online leaderboards. A bonus point is the system’s slim vertical profile – making it a great addition to an already crowded home gym.

Ergatta

Rowing is all the rage: not only is it a full body effort (which works more muscles at once, meaning more calories being burnt) well-suited for the current zeitgeist of quick, intense workouts, its impact-free, making for less joint strain and greater longevity for years to come. Ergatta also stays away from livestreamed instructors, instead relying on simple gamification and goal setting. You can race against others or focus on your skyrocketing heart rate: both will be displayed on a screen in real-time for you. The body of the Ergatta isn’t your typical matte black look either. Made from sustainably-sourced cherry wood, it’s both eco-friendly and won’t stick out like a sore thumb in your living room. It’s also foldable for easy storage. Ergatta will also be donating $100 USD to Meals On Wheels America for every rower sold to help tide over people affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Peloton

Notwithstanding controversial ads, Peloton has revolutionised the home workout scene with its daily livestreamed classes since 2012. Whether you’re partial to spinning or running, Peloton’s state of the art home exercise systems are equipped with digital screens that broadcast classes as you sweat. Their energetic instructors will keep you motivated while you plug away – and after it all, you’ll get to track your progress including your heart rate, cadence and other metrics to make sure you’re never plateauing. Peloton is all about creating an exercise community, so you can compete with others to get a place on online leaderboards, commit to fitness goals and never, ever get bored. Now, they’ve expanded their offerings with an app that provides a variety of strength training, stretching or yoga options.

Fightcamp

Fightcamp brings boxing into the 21st century with its use of punch trackers and real-time onscreen progress counters. Gain insight into your punches-per-minute while working on the form and power behind your punches, thanks to onscreen fighting coaches. Workouts are structured around high intensity interval training, similar to three-minute rounds in actual boxing. Additional workouts on the Fightcamp app also focus on bodyweight movements, mimicking how many fighters train. Of course, your purchase includes a free-standing punching bag, premium boxing gloves and wraps and rubber workout tiles. Finally, you can expect leaderboards and a detailed history of your workouts so you can keep improving, session after session. Unfortunately though, the Fightcamp app is currently only available for iOS.

Tempo

Tempo takes the guesswork out of exercise with a 3D-motion capture system that maps out your movements as you do them. No more will you wonder if: “Am I going back far enough?” By tracking your joints and providing real-time feedback, it acts like a coach and helps you improve your form, preventing injuries and helping you to get the most out of each movement. During live Tempo classes, you can expect actual coaches who receive an anonymised 3D model of you so they can further fine-tune your movements. All of this will be displayed on a 42-inch monitor, which also comes with nooks to store barbells, plates and dumbbells in.

Ritual

Ritual eschews machines and single-joint exercises for free weights, functional movements and crams it into a frenzied 20-minute workout. You and nine others will be put through your paces from within your individual ‘pods’: an array of barbells, dumbbells and rings exclusively for you to lift, strain and sweat over. Add in a curated playlist to get your heart pumping, and you have a quick, effective HIIT workout that you can fit in your lunch hour with time to spare. Their #RitualAnywhere workouts were launched on Mar 20, with a focus on bringing Ritual’s workouts to anyone, anywhere. Though some of the exercises require equipment like kettlebells, they provide alternatives, like a book-filled backpack, that can easily be found at home.

Workouts will be posted here.

Crucycle

Crucycle takes spin class and its ethos of togetherness very seriously. It’s all about riding with the pack: if an encouraging (but ferocious) atmosphere with frenetic beats and exhausting full body workouts is what you’re looking for, then Crucycle is for you. Now that the COVID-19 outbreak has forced Crucyle to stop classes for now, the pack remains united. For the month of April, you can look forward to HIIT workouts on Instagram with your beloved pack leaders, mini-challenges to compete with other members of the wolf pack, and cooking classes to keep you at the top of your game.

Workouts will be posted here.

Yoga Lab

Yoga Lab’s brightly lit studios are scattered across prominent locations like Dempsey Hill and the CBD. Within each exists a safe space for wannabe-yogis to get a taste of nirvana, whether from meditative contemplation or improving vitality and flexibility in a variety of poses. Though they’ve closed, they’re offering virtual lessons via Zoom. Though instructors won’t be able to physically correct your form, classes will remain small so you can get all the necessary attention and instructions you need to explore yoga.

Click here for the schedule.

Boom

Boom provides 45-minute, F45-esque workouts with an emphasis on the spirit of inclusivity. At the same time, they also throw in heavy bag work and shadow boxing, so it’s more than just functional fitness and bodyweight movements. Though Boom has closed their studio until Apr 3, they now offer class livestreamed on Instagram Live and IGTV for you to follow-along until their gym can re-open. The best part? The classes are at 8.15am – so you get the workout done before the vagaries of working from home (read: naps and impromptu Netflix bingeing) provides you with a reason not to workout.

Click here for the schedule.

Evolve MMA

Asia’s premier fighting institute Evolve MMA doesn’t just teach you how to fight. They want you to evolve into the best version of yourself through martial arts. Learn everything from muay thai and Brazillian jiu-jitsu to basic self-defense and yoga for MMA. It isn’t all about fighting though: combat sports are tiring, and you’ll find that your cardiovascular and muscular endurance will be heavily taxed by martial arts. Now, they’ve launched livestream classes on Youtube that are available for anyone – and they aren’t just home HIIT workouts either. Grab your spouse and put on your gis: grappling, striking and everything else are all covered across a variety of disciplines. Even if you miss the livestream, you can come back to it again and again.

Click here for their live classes.

Orangetheory

Heart-rate is at the heart of Orangetheory’s workout philosophy. Any workout at an Orangetheory gym begins with you putting on a heart-rate monitor and over the course of an hour, working up to the orange zone, a heart-rate between 84 and 91 per cent of your maximum. Since your orange zone changes based on individual body type or fitness level, it ensures that your workout is always intense enough without becoming torturous: making it mentally easier than a HIIT session elsewhere. That doesn’t mean the workout isn’t effective – an orange zone workout purportedly boosts your metabolism by increasing oxygen consumption for hours after the workout. The fitness franchise have released full follow-along workouts complete with instructors, for home. The Orangetheory heart-rate monitor and app allow you to ensure that you’re in the orange zone when you need to be, even when you’re exercising from the comfort of your living room.

Full follow-along workouts, updated daily, here.